Chennai-based band Oxygen explores genres in its new album

CHENNAI: Oxygen is a live world music band based in Chennai that explores several genres like Jazz, Oriental, Funk, Synth, Latin, Irish, Rock, and Symphonic among others and gives the music an Indian twist and flavour. The band has more than 40 tracks to its credit and has performed over 3000 live concerts.

The band has crafted a unique experience for listeners with their new album, The Metagen Project, which has its mastering and mixing done by Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio which amplifies the quality of music and offers an immersive experience.

Talking about their music, C Girinandh, founder of Oxygen says, “Music has the single energy to connect with anyone and everyone. We don’t go by any particular genre. We are trying to not limit ourselves into one frame of music and are wanting to explore all the genres there are to see how they sound when combined with Indian notes and rhythms.”

He says that the band is different from other artists in the scene performing film songs because the band uses its original style of blending different genres into the song while leaving the essence of the original.

Out of the six songs, Oxygen released two songs from their album The Metagen Project last month, Saraswathi and Northern Lights. Saraswathi is an authentic blend of Carnatic and Hindustani pieces of music and tries to experiment with the ragam, Saraswathi.

Talking about how Northern Lights has a melange of variations to it from Hindustani to Jazz to Soft Rock, he says, “We don’t usually decide or plan to have a particular kind of style, genre or song; it all just happens very intrinsically. One of us comes up with a note or tune and we try experimenting with it and see what more can be added.

“But that was not the case with Northern Lights. We wanted to replicate the nature of the phenomenon through music. We see several wavy patterns and variations of colours in the sky and trying to replicate the same nuances into music was super fun and interesting. The song tries to relate to the European nativity and brings the James Bond vibes with the similar scoring pattern.”

Girinandh offers a peek at what the other four tracks are about, and says, “The third song is called Thanthane Nane. It is a contemporary Tamil folk song which is about farmers and the quintessence of our soil. The other songs explore Oriental and Bihu folk genres. We hope for listeners to be able to enjoy and connect with the music and understand music need not be confined to a single genre.”

The songs Saraswathi and Northern Lights are available on YouTube while the rest of the songs will release this week.